…amateur playwright Edward Martyn, 38, has invited his neighbour, Lady Augusta Gregory, 45, to tea. Her home, Coole Park, is over six miles away from his, Tullira, so they don’t see each other too often.
Augusta wants to meet Martyn’s house guest, the poet William Butler Yeats, just turned 32, who has been traveling around this part of the country for the past week or so.
Tullira
Yeats and Lady Gregory have met briefly before, in London, where she held salons at her flat when her husband Sir William Gregory, Member of Parliament, was alive. Now she spends most of her time here in her native Ireland, raising their son Robert, 16, and trying to learn Irish.
Martyn is not particularly sociable. Or neighborly. But on this occasion he figures Augusta will keep the conversation going. He’s already angry with Yeats for having invoked some sort of ‘lunar power’ the other night. And in the room right above his chapel! These Protestants have no respect for the religion of others, particularly Catholics like Martyn.
Besides, Willie and Augusta just might get on with each other.
The chapel in Tullira
This year, we’ll be telling stories about these groups of ‘such friends,’ before, during and after their times together.
SuchFriends Blog 